


A Matter of Choice

by MermaidMarie



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Choices, Episode: s04e13 No Better To Be Safe Than Sorry, Fix-It, Gen, Not Canon Compliant, Other, Post-Possession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-03-01 03:39:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18792226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MermaidMarie/pseuds/MermaidMarie
Summary: In which Julia decides her own fate.“Have you made your decision?” she asked simply.Julia hesitated. Goddess or human. She could choose, really choose. She could decide what she wanted, what she believed she should do. It was the kind of power over her own destiny that she’d never had before. Persephone had never asked her what she wanted, hadn’t given her the choice to begin with.“I don’t know,” Julia replied, her voice small.





	A Matter of Choice

**Author's Note:**

> Were you mad that Julia didn't get to make her own decisions? Me too. Here is me fixing that.  
> Disclaimer: I really don't know much about mythology.   
> cw: references to sexual assault

Julia was… dying.

Or at least, she was pretty sure she was.

The last thing she remembered…

_In Kady’s apartment, lounging on the couches, the sun streaming in through the big windows. Julia had a book on her lap, but she wasn’t reading. She was taking a break, stretched out, looking at the ceiling._

_Kady sat cross-legged next to her, flipping through some pages in a notebook._

_“Hey, I think I found a cooperative spell we haven’t tried yet,” she said._

_“Oh yeah?” Julia replied. She pulled herself up, grinning. “What is it?”_

_“Nothing special,” Kady said. “Rainclouds.”_

_Julia waved a hand, sighing. “I’ve made rainclouds before.”_

_Kady snorted. “Okay, fine, be like that,” she said, but she shot Julia a grin. “Let me keep looking—”_

_But the scene wasn’t stable, was it? The light shifted, like the time of day hadn’t made up its mind. And Julia was sitting at the kitchen counter, leaning forward on her elbows._

_“You know, you’re a terrible cook,” she said._

_Quentin glanced over his shoulder, shooting her a glare. “Still better than you,” he said._

_She laughed. “We should really have, like, anyone else make lunch.”_

_“We should really order food,” Quentin said. He burnt his finger against the hot pan, flinching and bring it up to his mouth._

_“Well, don’t touch it!” Julia chided._

_“I didn’t mean to!” Quentin protested._

Julia hadn’t even realized it wasn’t real until the axes hit her back, splitting her open and ricocheting her back into her body. She’d gasped, her eyes becoming hers again, seeing Penny and Quentin and Alice all looking at her, wary and concerned.

She’d made a sincere effort to tell them she was fine—they looked so _distressed—_ but she hadn’t managed to get a word out before falling to her knees, feeling all that power that had been in her fingertips slip away with the golden dust of the Monster.

And then… she was out.

And now? Where was she?

Was this what dying was like?

She wasn’t in the Happy Place of Kady’s apartment, the safe, sugar-coated visions to distract her from the horrors of what was happening in the world outside her. She wasn’t… anywhere.

She knew, vaguely, that she was in a hospital bed. That Penny 23 and Quentin were bickering in the room. She knew it in the way that you knew where you were in a dream, without knowing how you got there.

She couldn’t quite _hear_ them. She could just… feel them, hovering, worrying.

And where was she?

Not the Happy Place. Not the real world. Not quite dreaming.

Everything was blurred and quiet, like she was underwater. There was something she wasn’t getting, something she didn’t understand. Julia didn’t like not _knowing_.

She took a breath (in the real world? In her mind? it was hard to tell) and she _focused._ Focused on one spot, one shade of green in the distance, one vague, shimmering shape.

Slowly, slowly, her surroundings became clearer, but her understanding of the situation did not.

A forest? Mist in the air. Wildflowers all around.

Had she been here before?

Was this a memory?

Was it magic?

Julia started to walk towards a tree, started to reach to touch it, because maybe touching it would make things make more sense, maybe it would help, maybe—

Her hand froze midair, hovering inches from the bark.

Julia felt her heart stutter. She pulled her hand back to her chest, pressing against her ribs, as she saw the glow, the shimmer of light manifesting before her…

And there, just there—

 

A woman stood in front of her. Smiling, warm, coated in sunlight. The grass seemed to lean towards her, the wind spiraling around her in a gentle breeze. Long honey gold hair and warm brown skin. Julia found herself staring, unable to even blink.

The woman moved towards her, slow gentle paces.

“Julia Wicker,” she greeted. Her voice seemed to float, like feathers, like dust motes, like blossom petals.

Julia let out a shaky breath. “That’s me,” she said, her voice weak.

“I’m pleased to see you again,” the woman replied.

Awed, Julia shook her head. “I’d remember you,” she said.

The woman’s smile, impossibly, brightened. “You flatter me,” she said. “No, you haven’t seen me before. But I’ve seen you. We know each other, you and I.”

“How?” Julia replied, breathless.

The woman stepped forward. “You believe that Persephone and Iris were the only goddesses to take an interest in you?”

“I haven’t—I haven’t really, um, met many others…” Julia said. Her voice trembled.

The woman shook her head. “No, I suppose not. What was it your friend Richard said, after giving you that prayer? That Our Lady of the Grain was pretty shy?” She tilted her head to the side, eyes wide. She looked almost abashed.

“Our Lady… of the Grain…” Julia repeated slowly.

“Before you and your friends tried to summon Our Lady Underground,” the woman continued gently. “You summoned me alone.”

“I—I thought…” Julia shook her head. “I didn’t…”

“Julia, the God-touched,” she went on. “You’ve always had such an impossible destiny.”

“Why didn’t you…” Julia trailed off, not sure where she was going with this. _Why didn’t you come to me sooner? Why didn’t you reveal yourself? Why didn’t you protect me, when I needed you?_

Our Lady of the Grain looked away, smile dimming. “We’re not all Persephone,” she said, her voice soft. “I would have done more for you, had I the power.”

“You answered my prayer that day,” Julia said.

The goddess moved slowly, carefully, a gentle breeze in her coiled hair. “I’m much like you, in some ways. There are some days I feel all I can do are—what do you call them? Party tricks. You called for me, asking nothing, and I knew you. So I came.”

“You knew me?”

She smiled, warmly. “I’m here to guide you this time, Julia. It seems you have a decision to make.”

Julia’s chest tightened. “So I’ve heard,” she said.

“From the Binder, from Persephone. After all this time, the choice is finally yours, Julia,” she said. She clasped her hands in front of her. “I have faith you will make the right decision.”

Julia laughed a little, unable to stop herself. “ _You_ have faith in _me?”_

Our Lady of the Grain nodded, as though it was a completely natural thing. “Gods have faith in humans all the time. Or at least, we’re supposed to. The worship was never supposed to go only one direction. Gods are supposed to serve humanity, too. Why would we exist only to _be_ worshipped?”

“You don’t seem like any god I know,” Julia said.

Our Lady of the Grain dipped her head slightly. “I’m afraid you’ve had bad luck in your encounters. You haven’t met our best.”

“That’s an understatement,” Julia replied, a slight edge in her tone. She chided herself a little at that, but Our Lady of the Grain didn’t seem to take offense.

“Have you made your decision?” she asked simply.

Julia hesitated. Goddess or human. She could choose, _really_ choose. She could decide what she wanted, what she believed she should do. It was the kind of power over her own destiny that she’d never had before. Persephone had never asked her what she wanted, hadn’t given her the choice to begin with.

“I don’t know,” Julia replied, her voice small.

Our Lady of the Grain nodded. “Then let’s take a walk. Shall we?”

She held out her hand, and Julia took it, finding herself pulled down a garden path. She was sure it hadn’t been there before.

The path was lined with honeysuckle, the flowers curling in, overtaking the cobblestone they walked on. Lavender and rosemary dotted the sides haphazardly, no pattern to their growth. Julia felt sunshine dappling through the leaves above her, though she had a vague sense that this was a vision. But how could her skin feel so warm?

The path curved in lazy, gentle ways, through the shade of the trees.

Our Lady of the Grain slowed when they got to a curve that showed a clearing through the flowers.

Curious, Julia paused.

 

It took her a moment to realize that what she felt was recognition. The clearing was not in these woods. The clearing was in New Jersey, where Julia had grown up. It was the grassy space in the strip of woods up the block from Quentin’s childhood home.

In the clearing, there were two children. A little boy hunched over a bowl with a watering can in hand. A little girl picking small flowers from the edges of the grass, where the trees began.

_The little girl turned, excitedly, her little fist clenched around a bouquet, and she looked towards the boy._

_“Quentin!” young Julia shouted. “You’re not doing it right.”_

_She marched over, her ponytail swinging. She crossed her arms over her chest, her flowers getting a little bit crushed. “If you want it to work, we have to do it right.”_

_Little Quentin looked down at his hands. His eyes were wide and confused._

_Julia shook her head. “You gotta put the flowers in first, and then pour the water over them. You can’t fill the bowl first, it’s the wrong order. That’s not how Jane does it in the book.”_

_“I—um, I—" Quentin stammered._

_Little Julia’s expression softened, her arms dropping to her sides. She knelt down next to him, holding his hand. “We’re gonna get to Fillory this time. I know it. Let’s start over.” She poured out the bowl into the grass and, with care, began to arrange her flowers in a deliberate way that only seemed clear to her._

Right. So this was memory lane, then.

“Memory lane, indeed,” the goddess replied, guiding Julia along, past the vision.

“Did you just read my mind?” Julia asked, glancing at her with a furrowed brow.

“Julia, we’re _in_ your mind,” she replied. “It’s not quite reading your thoughts as it is existing in them. Why I can see the memories, too.”

“Why are we doing this?” Julia said, sparing one last glance at tiny Quentin before they turned the corner.

“You prefer to make decisions after weighing all of the factors,” the goddess replied. “Well, here are the factors—your life, what it means to you to be human. What it meant to you to be a goddess. What is important to you.”

Julia sighed, looking back again. Little Julia and Little Quentin were completely out of view. “It’s _all_ important to me,” she said.

The path felt like it shifted, like the directions were changing with the breeze. The goddess walked in graceful, weightless strides. Julia felt like she was going to trip on the cobblestone, distracted by the smell of the rosemary.

When she and Quentin were kids…

When she and Quentin were kids, they existed in their own world. From the moment Julia had seen Quentin anxiously standing apart from the group, from the moment she’d walked up to him and decided they were going to be friends, they had a space in the world that was all their own.

And it was magical. Wasn’t it? To hide in the woods, in treehouses, in parks, and bring your own world with you. Wonderland, Neverland, Terabithia. Fillory.

It was possible they’d continued playing pretend until they were too old to. It was possible they’d kept the fantasy world around longer than they were supposed to, possible they delayed growing up, clinging to the magic of being able to create a universe in the corner of a forest clearing.

Imagine, imagine. Imagine being able to create those worlds in reality.

Imagine being able to shape an entire _world,_ Julia’s own Fillory, but better. A land with magic and hope and beauty, a land that wouldn’t lock kids out when they needed a safe haven. A land that Julia could watch over and guide.

Iris had told her it was possible.

Julia could _create._ Like what she dreamed of as a little girl.

It was a possibility.

 

The goddess hummed beside her, a soothing tune that Julia didn’t recognize.

The path turned again, another clearing opening up beside her.

It was Julia, preteen Julia, sitting on a bench near a fountain, curling her fingers into her sweatshirt nervously. Next to a boy who looked equally as anxious.

Julia recognized that boy—who was he? An old classmate—Nate, maybe? Or Drew?

_Younger Julia tucked her hair behind her ear, glancing at the boy and then staring at the ground._

_Oh, this,_ Julia thought. She knew what this memory was. Her first kiss. She laughed, before covering her mouth as though the memories would hear her.

_Preteen Julia opened her mouth like she was about to say something and then turned away sharply. She squeezed her eyes shut, taking a short breath._

_Too fast, she turned and leaned up. She kissed him quick, their noses knocking together._

_As she pulled back, she giggled, looking away._

_“Sorry,” she said, but she was smiling like she didn’t mean it._

_He just stared at her with wide brown eyes, a grin growing on his lips._

_He brought a hand up to his nose. “Ow.”_

Julia looked on fondly. She remembered his name now. It _was_ Nate. He was always so nice to her.

They’d done that middle-school version of dating where they went on a couple very stiff, awkward dates and kissed a few times before breaking up in math class.

What a beautiful, ordinary human thing. Reminiscing about one’s first kiss, with rose-colored nostalgia.

They walked on, leaving the scene behind.

 

“So, what? Are we going through my memories to show me the beauty of being human or to show me what I could become as a goddess?” Julia asked. “Ghost of Goddess Past, or something? This feels like some kind of dream sequence designed to teach me the moral of the story.”

“We’re merely looking at the full picture,” Our Lady of the Grain replied. “You’re guiding these memories, Julia. We’ll end up where you want to go.”

“I want to get to the part where I already know what the right decision is,” Julia said. She brushed her hands through the lavender growing beside the path.

“Oh, Julia,” the goddess said with a sigh. “These choices are never simple.”

“I wish they were,” Julia replied.

Our Lady of the Grain glanced at her with a wry smile, a glimmer in her eye. “No, you don’t,” she said. “We’re in your mind, dear. We both know that simplicity has never appealed to you.”

Julia found herself smiling back. “Yeah, well. Maybe some simplicity wouldn’t hurt every once in a while.”

As though on cue, as though to show her how simplicity had been long since lost from her life, the path turned and another clearing opened up through the honeysuckle and the rosemary.

 

It was New York City, where Quentin and Eliot were walking briskly on the sidewalk, away from a building that Julia recognized.

Julia almost winced. She knew this memory well. She didn’t quite want to revisit it.

_The Julia in the memory followed Quentin to the sidewalk in long, angry strides. “Hey! So that’s it? That’s all you’re gonna say to me?”_

_Quentin, turning back around, looked at her with judgement she’d never seen from him before that moment. Or at least, certainly never directed at her. “I don’t know what you’re doing here, Jules. You’re better than this.”_

_“You say that like I had a choice,” Julia replied, incredulous._

_“Of course you have a choice—”_

_Of_ course _he would see it that way._

_“No, because guess what? Magic wasn’t just handed to me.” She studied Quentin’s face, but he was stiff and cold in a way she didn’t quite recognize. He was changed, different. And she just wanted him to understand, just wanted him to see where she was._

_She pushed through, accusatory and hurt. “I told you to please tell them about me. At first, you know, I thought maybe they’d actually test me again, and then I figured someone would at least come and try to take my memory again, and then… Just waiting. It took me weeks to realize you never even told them about me at all.”_

_He didn’t look defensive. Julia_ wanted _him to look defensive, to look guilty. Like he knew he’d done something wrong. Like he knew he’d hurt her._

_“Look, Jules, I—”_

_If anything, he just looked uncomfortable. Julia felt stung. Did he even care? “You were my best friend.”_

_“Yeah, and so I let it go.”_

_“What does that mean, you ‘let it go’?” She furrowed her brow. “No, that’s crazy, I can actually do—”_

_“People at Brakebills, Jules, they can bend light. They can read minds. They can fly. You can do a party trick.” He’d said it with near-contempt. Near condescension._

_It took a beat for Julia to process. She didn’t think she liked this Quentin. This Quentin who was smug and harsh and judgmental. Who thought he was better than her. “So this is it, huh? The real you.”_

_He glanced away briefly, his mouth twitching slightly. “Do you ever stop to think about how maybe you treated me?”_

Julia remembered this, when the fight took the turn, when it became too personal. When it was no longer about magic and about Brakebills and it became about _them,_ about Julia’s avoidance and about Q’s resentment. About the side of their relationship they’d never touched. The silent agreement they’d had.

_“What? I was always there—”_

_“What? You were so nice, and you were so sweet, to poor little Q who couldn’t get his shit together—”_

_“Don’t put that on me.”_

_“Between you and James—”_

_“That is_ your _interpretation—”_

_“I was a two for one charity case—”_

_“Why are you saying—”_

_“Because that is_ true _Julia!”_

_“No, that’s not true, I—”_

_“You knew how I felt about you.”_

_“I don’t know what…”_

_“Admit it. Just admit it. Admit it.”_

And she _had_ known, but what had he really wanted her to say? Was he just ready to confront her about it, to hate her for it, now that he’d _won?_ Now that he’d found something she wanted, found something that was given to him and not her? Had he gotten to a place where he could admit his feelings from her, only from his high horse?

Julia remembered the way her throat had tightened, the way the blood had rushed in her ears. The way her face had heated. His feelings for her weren’t her fault. She had never led him on, and he _knew_ that, he _knew_ that his crush had been his problem and he _knew_ that it was unfair to be mad at her for not feeling the same way.

Yet there he was, throwing it back at her, like he’d just been waiting for the chance. Like their friendship had been some kind of exercise in patience for him, some kind of game in which he had to find the right moment to blow it apart.

_Memory Julia’s voice trembled slightly. “So you’re gonna punish me for that?”_

_And Quentin didn’t look sorry. “I don’t know what else to say. You—I don’t—You can’t blame me. Does James even know that you’re here? You’re hanging out with a bunch of tweakers who are turning tricks for spells.”_

_“Are you kidding me? These people wanna—”_

_“Stop slumming because you’re pissed that you_ lost _for once in your life.”_

 _She stared at him for a moment before dropping her gaze. There it was, the danger of having a friend who knew you well enough to know_ exactly _what to say to hurt you._

_“I’m sorry, but I mean it. You could really get hurt doing this shit, and for what? Grow up.”_

Grow up _. Julia had said those words to him before, too, when he’d been clinging too tightly to Fillory, to the fantasy worlds that he escaped to when he didn’t want to face his life. And here it was, he’d_ won _. Because magic was real, and she had stopped believing in it when he never did._

_But just because she’d stopped believing in it didn’t mean she deserved to have it taken from her now._

_“Do you love magic? Is it in your soul? Is it like the secret heart of what you always were?”_

_Quentin took a breath. He didn’t reply._

_“Yeah. So you know how I feel.”_

_She turned away, heading back into the safehouse with the hedge witches._

The next few memories came in snapshots—

Casting the Scarlotti Web. Trapping Quentin in a prison of his own creation, seeing the torture he’d built around himself with just a little resentful satisfaction. _Party tricks, huh, Q?_ It was vindictive. It was cruel. Putting him there.

And then… Finding out he was going to be stuck in that awful limbo—forever, if Marina had her way. Finding out that her petty revenge had been monumentally more damaging than she’d intended, the regret twisting inside her, _how could she do this, do you have any idea where he is—_

At Brakebills in tears, begging someone to fix the mess Marina had guided her into making. Begging someone to help, because she couldn’t live with herself if Quentin got really, truly hurt. She may have been furious at him, she may have hated him a little, but he didn’t _deserve_ this—

Being pulled from Brakebills, being drawn back to the safehouse, her tattoos, the screaming red crosses being seared into her skin—

_You think Brakebills cut you off from magic? You don’t know cut off. But, baby, you will._

Taste of honey worse than none at all—

That’s what the Brakebills test had been to begin with. She’d been pulled into this magic world, _finally,_ finally told her childish dreaming hadn’t been for nothing, finally feeling like there was really a grand adventure for her.

Getting rejected from Brakebills, getting cut off from magic, being lost and alone in the world, when she _knew_ where she was supposed to be…

These memories weren’t as nice as playing in the woods and having her first kiss. These memories were more complicated, messier.

 

“What’s the lesson I’m supposed to learn here?” Julia asked, turning to the goddess. “That being human sucks, that humans are flawed and mean and selfish? That even Q, even me, after everything we’d been through together, we were just one thing away from hurting each other at any given moment?”

“I can’t tell you what you’re supposed to learn,” the goddess replied. “These are your memories. You know what you took from them.”

Julia stifled a sigh.

“Sure,” she said. “I learned how much magic can hurt.”

“You’ve come a long way since then,” Our Lady of the Grain replied mildly.

“Not before it nearly destroyed me,” Julia replied. “And not before it nearly destroyed my friendship with Q. And not before it _did_ destroy my relationship with James.”

_James…_

 

She and James and Quentin, they’d been _friends._ All three of them. They’d gone through college together. They’d pulled all-nighters. They’d gotten way too drunk and passed out on the floor together. Julia had thought…

She’d thought that they’d have one of those college friendships that last forever. Where whenever they would get together, it would just be like they were in college again. They’d revert back to the immature barely-adults ordering pizza and playing drinking games for the nerdy movies they loved.

And then Quentin had vanished, and Julia had fallen apart, and James had…

Well, James was human. Normal. He was probably off somewhere with a job and a steady girlfriend and apartment, hitting all the adult-life milestones. He was probably out of grad school by now.

Quentin and Julia had long since lost any chance of ever having lives like that.

Simplicity had been lost to them since they first wandered into the Brakebills exam.

 

The path curved and twisted, bunches of lavender lining another clearing.

The memory became clearer, Fillory, with its strange air and sky.

_Julia, uncertainly standing before the burnt land. Getting the courage to try something, to try to perform a miracle, to try to fix what she’d destroyed when she’d been a human with no Shade._

_Taking a deep breath. And…_

Magic _._

_The trees, pushing through the ground, sprouting up and growing, growing. Julia let out a short laugh, relieved, disbelieving. It was so beautiful, it was all so beautiful, and it had been her. She was capable of so much more good than she’d realized. She could fix, she could heal, she could enchant._

_It was all so wonderful and strange._ Magic _._

_The power at her fingertips—it felt endless, almost. Possibilities, so many possibilities._

“This is to show how far I’ve come,” Julia said. “Isn’t it?”

“As I said, Julia, you’re guiding this,” the goddess replied.

“It was pretty amazing,” Julia said, watching the newly healed forest sway in the memory. “Being able to do that.”

“Where you got your namesake. Our Lady of the Tree.”

Julia smiled a little. “I never did get comfortable being called that.”

 

As the path curved, another memory came into view.

The clearing opened into a house, hardwood floors and big windows.

_Lying under that table, no one saw them. They could escape Julia’s mother’s iciness and Quentin’s mother’s judgement. It was theirs._

_“No, wait—so, um, actually, Chatwin’s Torrent is on—is on the other side?” Quentin said, moving Julia’s arm. “See, it’s like, it’s south of Ember’s Tomb, right? Because in the books, remember when—when Rupert gets hurt, and—”_

_“Right, of course,” Julia replied, leaning up a little to start drawing it in the right place. “I forgot about that.”_

_“It’s actually pretty interesting if you think about it, you know? How like, the Tomb and the Torrent are so close together, because like, Chatwin’s Torrent is, um, healing, and the Tomb—”_

Julia smiled as she looked on. Quentin and his endless stream of babbling, when you just got him on the right topic. He’d been shy when they’d first became friends, but the second he got into the books, she could never get him to stop talking.

This memory… Of making the map, of talking about how to get to Fillory, of hiding together, away from the world.

It was such a fond memory. So soft at the edges.

She and Quentin would return to it often. Anytime they fought. Anytime one of them had a bad day. Up until they were teenagers, they’d lie under that table to talk. It was the safest place, in Julia’s mind. The place where nothing could hurt them.

When Quentin’s parents had gotten divorced, they went under the table. When Julia and James started dating, they went under this table. When they were waiting for the acceptance or rejection letters from colleges, they went under this table.

Her and Q.

When she and Quentin finally made up, when Quentin came to her apartment after he’d been separated from his friends, they lay under the table. Knowing Fillory was real and trying to find a way to get there.

 

The next memory stopped her in her tracks. Her eyes widened in surprise. Where did _this_ come from? Why was this the next thing on her mind? She hadn’t thought about it in so long.

The rosemary was thick at her feet, the smell drifting around her. And there, in the clearing, was her childhood home. And a teenage version of her, facing off against her sister.

_“You’re not Mom, Mackenzie!” Julia snapped._

_Mackenzie flicked her blond hair back and shot her a very Mom-style disappointed-but-annoyed look, which only served to frustrate Julia more._

_“Yeah, well, Mom is busy, so I’m in charge,” Mackenzie replied, crossing her arms._

_Julia rolled her eyes. “You’re so full of shit.”_

_“Language.”_

_“Please!” Julia scoffed. “Save it. God, you’re such a bitch sometimes.”_

_Mackenzie’s arms dropped and her eyes widened. She looked so genuinely hurt for a moment; Julia looked away guiltily._

_But Mackenzie covered the crack in her expression quickly. “Look, it’s just one party, Jules. There will be others.”_

_Julia crossed her arms. “It’s_ not _just one party,” she mumbled._

_“I’m sick of your angsty teen act. Grow up.”_

_Teenage Julia glared. It wasn’t just the party. It was so many things. It was that it was the first party she’d managed to talk Q into since he’d gotten out of the hospital, and if she bailed, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to convince him again. It was that James was going to be there, and she really thought he might like her. It was that Julia had been so fucking stressed by all her advanced classes that she hadn’t had a night to herself all semester._

_But what was she supposed to do, actually say all that to Mackenzie? Unlikely. Mackenzie would just report back to Mom, and then Julia would somehow get in trouble over it._

_Mackenzie was always better at staring contests. Julia blinked, spun around and stormed off. Slamming the door to her room and falling onto her bed, the tears spilling over before her head hit the pillow._

It had been so long since Julia had seen her sister… Or anyone in her family.

Another part of being human, she supposed. The messiness of human relationships. How they fall apart and break and drift. She didn’t hate her mom anymore. She didn’t resent her sister anymore.

They just… weren’t. There was nothing left there. She had distanced herself, and the way time had been warped and confusing since that exam at Brakebills, she wasn’t even sure how many holidays she’d missed at this point.

Maybe her mom and sister had just sorted her into the same family category as her dad. _Lost causes._ Never need to speak to them, never need to mention them.

She wondered, absently, if her family still kept pictures of her on the wall.

She wondered, absently, if she still even had any pictures of her family.

Well, she had Q, anyway.

She didn’t linger too long with the memory of her sister. She walked on beside Our Lady of the Grain, not looking back.

 

The next curve in the path opened up to Quentin’s bedroom. She recognized the posters, the books, the mess on the floor. Teenage versions of them engrossed in their respective college applications, Quentin on the bed and Julia at his desk.

_Quentin groaned, collapsing back onto his bed. “Okay, whose turn is it to have the panic attack?” he asked with a sigh._

_“Mine, I think, but you can borrow it,” Julia replied, not looking away from her screen as she typed._

_“Is college really worth it? I mean, I feel like I could just skip it,” Quentin said._

_Julia smirked. “Yeah, right. Like you’d ever actually not go to college.”_

_“There are other things I could do,” he replied, gesturing vaguely. “Like… Join the circus. Or deal drugs.”_

_“You’d make a terrible drug dealer,” she said. “No one would take you seriously.”_

_He groaned again, grabbing her pillow and covering his face._

_“Just think—we can move out of our parents’ houses. We can get a place in the city together. We can find one of those cute bookstores that has like, a coffee shop inside and an orange cat in the window, and we can go there every weekend.” Julia stretched, pushing her chair away from her desk and closing her computer._

_“That does sound nice,” Quentin replied, his voice muffled._

_“Great. Now I’m taking the panic attack back, because I swear to God, I cannot write this personal essay. I mean, seriously, the most influential person in my life? Who am I even supposed to write about? Because everything feels like an exaggeration or a cliché.”_

_Quentin laughed into the pillow._

_“I’m serious!” Julia said._

How strange, that this had seemed like the most important thing in the world at the time. How strange, how much their lives had veered off track from where they thought they’d be.

 _Imagine if these kids had known where they’d end up. They had no idea what they were in for_ , Julia thought to herself.

“Things have changed quite a bit,” Our Lady of the Grain agreed.

Julia’s lips twitch into a small smile. “Not everything, though,” she said softly. “It’s still me and Q.”

But was that really true?

 _We used to be the same thing,_ she remembered telling Penny. She and Quentin, they were both the gifted students growing up, they were both the nerdy kids in the corner, they were both the stressed-out college students, they were both Magicians.

They were both human.

Until she wasn’t anymore.

 

Like she was underwater, Julia heard voices—distant, vague voices.

_“Well, what are we supposed to do? She’s not waking up, and I can’t—”_

_“If you would just listen to me—”_

_“Julia, come on. I know you’re in there. Please wake up.”_

Penny, and Dean Fogg, and Quentin…

“I’m running out of time,” Julia said. “Aren’t I?”

Our Lady of the Grain looked regretful. “Yes. You’ll have to make a choice soon.”

Julia took a deep breath, glancing up at the sky through the trees. “I’m not ready.”

“We’re very rarely ready for these kinds of choices.”

“This feels too important.”

“It will never become an easy choice, Julia.”

Julia sighed, frustrated, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I just—I can’t, you know, intellectualize this one. I need to think it over logically, have the pros and cons weighed out, I need to—I don’t know. I need to _know_ what the right thing to do is.”

_“Is there any change? Any change at all?”_

_“She’s still, like, catatonic—I don’t know, Penny, I don’t know what we can do, I—I can’t—”_

The voices got a little crisper, for a moment. She could hear Penny’s desperation, Quentin’s panic.

“There is no right thing to do, Julia,” the goddess told her. “There is only what choice is true to what you want. What you feel.”

“I don’t _know_ what I feel,” she murmured.

“Well, that’s why we’re here,” the goddess replied gently. “Isn’t it?”

The path curled, and another memory came into view.

 

Julia figured it must be hearing Penny’s voice that brought this one up.

_“You know I’m not broken, right? I’m not some flower, or a delicate piece of glass. I’m a person. And people heal.”_

It was her and Penny, when they did the ritual to try and figure out what the hell she was.

_The reverence with which he touched her skin, the care he took in looking at her, the fact that the ritual worked at all, given it needed someone who worshipped her so entirely…_

_Now_ that _made her feel inhuman. Like he looked at her and saw something beyond what she was, something beyond who she was._

_There was something so distancing and lonely about it. Something so disconnected._

_Because she wasn’t human._

“I don’t know how to feel, with the way he looks at me,” Julia said, sort of to herself. “I just—I wish I could feel _normal,_ sometimes.”

“Normal?” Our Lady of the Grain repeated.

Julia smiled, shaking her head. “Okay, no. Not exactly. Just… I don’t know.”

“It’s complicated, isn’t it?” she replied, her voice soft and distant. “Being human.”

“I wouldn’t really know anymore,” Julia said, surprised by the bitterness seeping into her tone.

Our Lady of the Grain looked at her, sympathy and understanding in her eyes. “Oh, Julia…”

Julia turned away from the memory sharply. What was she supposed to do with it? With the way she _did_ care about him, she did have feelings for him… But she never fully knew how much he saw _her,_ and how much he saw that other Julia he knew. How much she was just a replacement to him.

How much she really was a _person_ to him.

“Let’s keep moving,” Julia said. “If we’re running low on time.”

 

The next memory…

_It was Julia in Elysium, in the strange house full of the Shades that looked like children, performing their small miracles._

_Julia, standing in front of the portrait of Our Lady Underground. Standing in front of the portrait of Persephone, before she’d ever met her._

_“So you were real all along, huh? Just completely AWOL. Self-centered bitch.”_

Julia remembered the feelings she’d had, in front of that portrait. Shadeless, her emotions had been different. Less connected to the rest of her. But the disdain she’d felt in front of that portrait, the betrayal, the disappointment—they were as real as anything else.

_“We were so stupid to love you,” Julia told Persephone’s image, her head held high._

But they _hadn’t_ been, Julia thought to herself. They hadn’t been stupid to love her, to trust her. They were only trying to have faith in someone, something, that they could trust to be better than them. They were only trying to believe that someone could help, that someone cared.

It wasn’t stupid. Just idealism in a world that didn’t reward it. Hope and love for someone that didn’t _see_ them.

Julia felt a twinge of sympathy, a twinge of protectiveness, toward that version of herself that had been so utterly failed by a goddess that was supposed to care.

_“Jules, I’m sorry,” Quentin said, following her up the stairs._

_“For what?” Julia asked, her tone clipped. “Look, I’m glad I know. It’s always better to know, Q.”_

Julia turned away.

It _was_ always better to know.

But sometimes, she missed that faith she’d had. That dream that had _given_ her that faith. The beauty of it all. But you can’t unring a bell.

“She disappointed you,” Our Lady of the Grain said.

“That’s putting it _very_ lightly,” Julia replied.

As if on cue, the next memory appeared.

 

_Julia, holding the gun that could kill Reynard._

_Persephone appearing, freezing the moment._

_“It’s you.” Her eyes cold, her face slack, she stared Persephone down. “You ignored us. And now you’re here? All of a sudden? Why?”_

_“To ask you to spare his life.”_

_Julia’s hands shook slightly. She knew how wrong this was, how deeply warped the world had to be for OLU to appear at_ that _moment. Not when they’d summoned her. Not when Reynard had been killing all those women, all those women whose only crime was believing in Our Lady Underground. “I don’t understand. Why do you care?”_

_“He’s my son.”_

_“Did you know what he was doing?” There was a beat, where Persephone broke eye contact. And Julia_ knew _. “Of course you did. He_ raped _me._ Your _son. I’d be sobbing and telling you every detail, but I lost my Shade in the abortion so you’re just gonna have to take my word for it.”_

_Our Lady Underground, her look of sympathy, of remorse. Julia wanted her to choke on her useless fucking remorse. “Let me deal with him.”_

_Julia could’ve laughed. “Why would I trust you? Come the fuck on, lady.”_

_“There are consequences to killing a god, Julia.”_

_Consequences. What a joke. Julia knew about consequences already. “I lost my friends, I lost everything. He turned me into a monster.”_

_“You’re a survivor. You’re still capable of mercy, Julia, don’t let him rob you of that.” The moment stretched. “It’s your choice.”_

_Persephone reached out, placing a hand on Julia’s cheek._

Julia’s jaw tensed, just watching the memory. Persephone had abandoned all those women. Had abandoned _her._ She’d let them believe in her, let them get _hurt,_ and for what?

Gods and goddesses, no wiser or more compassionate than any human. Just more powerful, just distant, just lacking in real empathy. What was that kind of power, that kind of position, worth if all you did was hide and let the people who trusted you suffer?

Beside her, Our Lady of the Grain was silent, looking on at the memory with a guarded expression.

Julia wondered, absently, if she would ever have done what Persephone did.

“Never,” Our Lady of the Grain replied to her thought, her voice soft and smooth. “But I don’t have the same power she does.”

“Would I? If I chose to be a goddess?” Julia asked.

Our Lady of the Grain glanced at her, smiled. “I cannot say for certain. But I _believe_ you’d have greater power than her. That you would be able to coax a spark of power into something truly remarkable”

“Because you believe in me?”

“Yes.”

Julia paused, considering. “Why?” she asked.

Our Lady of the Grain seemed to hesitate. “Gods, goddesses… We can’t tell the future,” she said carefully. “But there are things we _can_ see. Potential, I suppose it could be called. We can see certain possibilities that humans contain.”

There was a beat of silence. Julia looked down at the cobblestone path.

“And what did you see in me?” she asked, her voice quiet.

The goddess smiled. “Let me show you what I saw,” she said, taking her hand again.

And it was the fairies, the fairies that Julia had seen be hurt and tortured and used and enslaved. The fairies that she and Fen had tried to help.

It was Julia, standing in front of the enslaved fairies, with her head held high, despite what she was faced with. It was Julia, looking less like herself and more like a painting, like a dream. The edges were soft and warm.

Julia could see—this wasn’t the memory of what had happened, this was the memory of what the goddess had seen. The memory of the possibility she’d seen in Julia. The memory of what had given her faith.

“I haven’t told you my name,” the goddess said. She almost sounded shy.

Julia turned to her, uncertain if she should say anything.

“Terribly rude to not introduce myself, I suppose. Terribly vain to let you call me Our Lady of the Grain, when by now, I’m sure you’ve earned the right to call all gods by their true names.” The goddess smiled slightly. “I’m Feronia.”

“Feronia,” Julia repeated. Was she supposed to have heard that name before?

“Not as famous as Persephone or Iris or Bacchus,” Feronia said. “As your friend Richard said, I am a harvest goddess. But we are all more than one thing, Julia. You, of course, know this.”

Julia did know. She’d been a great many things already, contradictory and complex. She contained multitudes.

“I am also a deity of liberty,” Feronia went on. “Slaves were freed at my temple.” She glanced at Julia, with a look that Julia might have almost described as affectionate. “Persephone saw you as special. She chose you. But I chose you, too. Not because of the things that happened to you, but because of who you are, deep at your core. I saw the possibilities you contained, Julia.”

“You… chose me.”

“Richard called me shy,” she said. “I suppose I am. I do not always come to those who call me.”

“But you came to me,” Julia replied. She furrowed her brow. “Richard said it was the first time it had worked. That prayer.”

Feronia smiled, warm and soft. “Yes. Because I _saw_ you.”

She glanced over. Thinking. Wondering. Worrying. “So what do you expect from me? Are you going to be disappointed if…”

She trailed off, uncertain.

But Feronia was already shaking her head. “No, Julia. Regardless of what you decide, I will not be disappointed. I only want your choice to be _yours.”_

Julia looked around. At the forest, at the trees, at the honeysuckle, at the lavender. “It doesn’t feel like it belongs to me.”

“Everything here belongs to you, Julia. Your life belongs to you.”

“But this choice… It affects more than just me. It’s bigger than me.”

“No,” Feronia replied. “It’s _yours._ It is _your_ life, your choice, your path. You decide where it turns and when.”

Julia wasn’t sure what to say to that.

It had been a really long time since she’d really felt like her life had belonged to her.

 

As the next memory came into view, Julia felt her chest tighten.

The clearing was her apartment, and there she was, lying on the couch. Hands shaking, curled in on herself, chain-smoking.

It was when she’d finally gotten her Shade back, and everything had come crashing down on her again, all the memories and the weight and the pain.

Julia let out a shaky breath.

Expecting to be stopped, she stepped off the garden path. Our Lady of the Grain said nothing, letting her go. She spared a glance back, but the goddess just watched solemnly. She’d figured she wouldn’t be allowed to interact with her memories, that this was more of a watch-only type deal. But…

Julia walked forward, into the room. The her from her memory looked over, recognizing but not reacting. Julia went and knelt beside the couch. Tentatively, she reached out, holding her past self’s hand delicately.

What could she say? What would’ve helped?

She didn’t know. She didn’t know what she would’ve wanted to hear. She only knew what she wanted to tell this girl, this girl that had these awful, horrific things happen. This girl that had suffered beyond what anyone should have to go through.

She felt such sadness, such empathy, such compassion, for this girl she’d been.

“This sucks, what you’re going through right now,” Julia said softly. She rubbed her thumb along other her’s knuckles. “What happened, it wasn’t your fault. No part of it. And I know that you _know_ that, but I also know that it doesn’t always feel that way.”

It was strange, being here, talking to herself like this. Talking to a version of her that she had already been. Interacting with a moment in her life that she had lived and moved past.

“But it was Our Lady Underground’s choice not to show up,” she went on. “You and Richard and Kady and everyone, you were all just trying to do something good. Help people. Believe in something. None of you deserved to be punished for that.”

Her throat tightened. She remembered… Richard and the others… They’d been killed, unceremoniously dying on the floor of her apartment. No lead up. No tearful goodbye. It had been so senseless, so empty, so deeply, deeply cruel.

She cleared her throat, trying to will away the tears threatening to slip through, trying to push away the images of her friends on the floor, blood everywhere.

“So I know that this feels endless right now,” she said. Her voice cracked. “But people heal, Jules. I have firsthand evidence of it. You’ll see.”

The cigarette shook in Past Julia’s fingers as she let out a weak, trembling sob. She didn’t answer, only acknowledging Julia’s presence with a glance and a squeeze of her hand.

There was something about their hands, connected, grounding her, that finally made the tears spill over and slip down Julia’s face.

She sniffed, trying meaninglessly in vain to cover up her face.

“Now Eliot’s going to come and he’s going to _see_ you and he’s going to know that you shouldn’t be alone and he’s going to ask for your help,” Julia said, taking a long breath. “And you’re going to go with him. And you know, things are going to start to get better. Slowly but surely. It’ll get better.”

“I hope you’re right,” Past Julia said, her voice scratchy and strained.

“I promise,” Julia replied.

She let go reluctantly, moving away and stepping back onto the garden path. As she watched Eliot come into view in the memory, she turned to Our Lady of the Grain.

“Let’s go,” she said softly.

Our Lady of the Grain just nodded, walking forward with her.

She brushed the tears from her cheeks, focusing on regulating her breathing. Focusing on counting her breaths.

The memory faded into the distance, falling away from her.

She steadied herself, settling her aching heart.

 

_“What choice do we have? If someone has to make the decision—”_

_“No, fuck that, there—fuck, there_ has _to be another way—”_

_“Wait, guys, I don’t think she’s breathing—”_

Penny, and Quentin, and Kady…

The voices were getting closer.

They’d reached the edge of the forest.

There was nothing beyond it, not really. It was like the world’s end. The last page of the book. In the distance, there was what looked like a sunset, but other that that…

White void. Emptiness.

Time was just about up.

“I have to decide,” Julia said.

“Yes,” Feronia replied.

“I don’t know what to do.”

Feronia looked over at her. “You’ve been guiding us. Let me bring you one last memory.”

She reached over, cupping Julia’s cheek gently.

And it wasn’t so much like watching the memory as experiencing it over again.

 

It was when Iris had pulled her into full goddesshood, when Iris had brought her to a land beyond, and told her she could make worlds.

She could make worlds, make worlds full of creatures and people and joy.

She just had to let go, let go of her humanity, her life, her friends.

But she could still hear them. Her mind was pulled back by the sound of her friends in trouble, by the sound of Quentin’s heart, by the sound of not giving up, never giving up. Going to the ends of the earth to bring magic back into the world.

And Quentin’s bravery, hunched on the floor over the destroyed keys, Quentin’s bravery as he fought because this was worth fighting for.

And how could Julia let go of what was worth fighting for? How could she let go of this world?

She could create worlds, sure, and she could create worlds in which all these terrible things would never happen.

But this world, the world her friends were in, it existed, here and now. There they were, with their beautiful, flawed existence. The world where Julia had been made. Iris said the world would live, magic would return eventually, life goes on and on and on.

But seeing the forest and not the trees—

Left to its own devices, that world could continue to turn and hurt and love and believe. Because life goes on, and on, and on.

But Julia could see the trees. That big picture pull-back-and-look-at-all-of-time mindset, that view where you could see endlessness stretching in both directions, promising a better future _eventually_ , promising change when it was due to come naturally—

That big picture didn’t take into account the people that were there now. Maybe the world would get better and magic would come back and life would go on, but right _now,_ that world needed someone. The pain was immediate. Quentin was on his knees, desperate.

And Julia saw, she saw the bravery and the pain and the beauty in each tree.

This moment was important. And so was the next, and the next, and the next. Magic would return, the world kept spinning, people kept living and dying. Forever.

But _this moment_ mattered.

And Julia knew what she had to do. Prometheus made the keys by sacrificing all his power. And she would remake them.

She appeared, feeling at once connected and so distant, right as Quentin dropped the destroyed key.

“Jules,” he said.

She looked at them, observing, feeling, wondering. “None of your pain is what we’d call quiet,” she said, her voice clear, her gaze steady. She settled on Alice—scared, stubborn, impulsive Alice. “Especially yours.”

She walked towards her, seeing Alice shrink slightly.

“I know you thought this was for everyone’s good.” She tilted her head, seeing Alice’s turmoil. “You’ll see someday it wasn’t.”

Alice looked like she wanted to defend herself but couldn’t find the words. It didn’t matter. Julia was apart from this; she knew what Alice’s real reasons were already.

“For now, I need you to stay out of the way.”

With a quick, sharp gesture, she sent Alice to the other side of the room, binding her to the floor.

Julia was aware, in a curiously disconnected way, of how everyone was looking at her. How Margo and Eliot stepped backwards, how they looked wary as they moved far out of her way. How Kady looked bewildered, afraid—maybe even sad, like she’d lost something. How Quentin’s eyes were wide.

Quentin…

She went to him, feeling the small spark of her humanity, the part that had stuck around—

It knew him, that small piece of her humanity she’d retained. It grew, just barely, as she knelt beside him, looking him deep in the eyes.

“I want you to know it’s your bravery,” she told him, her voice softening, “that made me see.”

“See what?” he replied.

He still looked at her like she was _herself._ Like she was the same person he’d always known. If he was a little more awed by her than usual.

She almost smiled.

“What I need to do,” she replied.

She took a breath, grasping the destroyed key that Quentin had thrown to the ground.

“What are you doing?” Kady said. Her voice was soft, wary.

Julia looked up at her. She saw the concern in Kady’s eyes, the fear. She wanted to tell her not to worry. Everything was going to be okay.

“What Prometheus did,” she said.  

 

Julia opened her eyes, cutting the memory off.

She knew how the rest of it went. She remembered, the fire in her hands, the way her power had burned out of her, how her veins had boiled.

She remembered the sacrifice that she had made, when she had decided to give up her goddesshood that time.

And now…

Here she was. Faced with the decision again, but this time, it wasn’t her friends in danger, it wasn’t her giving something up to save them, it wasn’t her hearing Quentin and his bravery and knowing what she had to do.

It was just her.

Julia looked ahead, through the forest to the sunset over the nothingness in the distance. It was hard to believe this was all in her mind.

“I could be better. Less like Persephone and Iris and Bacchus.” She turned to Feronia. “More like you.”

Feronia smiled. “You could be better than _me_ , too, Julia.”

“I could really help people,” Julia went on. “Like before. I could heal people. I could answer prayers.”

Feronia didn’t say anything. She clasped her hands in front of her and tilted her head slightly, all her attention on Julia.

“All it would cost me is my life, my humanity, my friends,” she said, her voice shaking just a little. “Small price to pay for everyone I could save.”

“You don’t owe the world your selflessness, Julia,” Feronia said. “Consider what you want. Not what the world or what your friends might need from you. This is _your_ choice.”

“How could I abandon Quentin? After all he’s been through?” Julia shook her head. “And Kady, when we’re just becoming friends again? And Penny, he’s already lost the Julia from his timeline, and we…”

Julia let a beat of silence stretch, but Feronia didn’t fill it. The breeze swirled around them, curling Feronia’s honey-hair. The rosemary seemed to creep closer as Julia waited. Waited for clarity, for certainty.

“But how could I refuse to become a goddess, knowing all the good I could do? Knowing how much I could do? How could I turn away from the opportunity to help people, away from the opportunity for immortality? Just because I’m scared, or… Just because I don’t want to let go.”

Feronia shook her head. “You want me to say something. I can’t. Whatever choice you make, it _will_ be the right one.”

Julia let out a short, incredulous laugh. “It doesn’t feel like that. It feels more like I’m failing someone or hurting someone no matter what I do.”

Feronia smiled, sighing a little as she gazed at Julia with admiring eyes. She stepped forward, taking Julia’s hands.

“Julia, you are a good person. You want to know what choice will be right for everyone else. I understand.” She paused, looking so deeply into Julia’s eyes that Julia nearly turned away. “What matters here is what choice is right for _you._ Think of yourself, first.”

 

She thought of her life. Of Quentin, of Kady, of Penny, of magic. She thought of how small her life was, how big the world was in comparison. She thought of her mother she’d hated, her dad she hadn’t really known, her sister she’d resented. She thought of James, how he’d forgotten her. Of Marina, of how she died.

She thought of Eliot, how they’d been fighting to get him back, how she didn’t even know if they’d succeeded yet. She thought of how Quentin had lost all of his hope. She thought of how Kady had said they weren’t friends, just two people with a complicated, messy history. She thought of how Penny looked at her, like he was expecting something incredible.

She thought of Alice, and forgiveness, and magic.

She could be a different kind of goddess. She could make herself remember, remember the beauty of individual humans, remember the value of one life. Remember that every life _had_ value.

She could refuse to be Iris, letting go of her past and her human attachments. She could refuse to be Persephone, abandoning those who called for her help. She could refuse to be Bacchus, enjoying power without caring about the responsibility that came with it.

She could leave her life behind. Leave her friends. Leave Quentin. She could see a grander world, she could be immortal, she could become more than she ever thought she was meant to be.

“I’m not ready,” she said suddenly, the words coming out without her meaning for them to. “I’m not ready to give up my humanity. I’m not ready to let go of my life. I _want_ to live it.”

Feronia smiled. “Is that your decision?” she said kindly.

Julia furrowed her brow. “I’m not sure.”

“Oh, Julia. You’ll never be sure.”

She took a breath, steeling herself. It was true—she couldn’t be certain about a decision like this. She just had to go with what felt right, and _this,_ it felt true. True to what she wanted. She wanted to be herself again. She wanted to find herself again.

“Then that’s my decision.”

 

Julia gasped, leaning up sharply, feeling the pain in every part of her body. The pain, the pain that proved she was _human_ again. There was a strange balance of fragility and resilience, a sort of complexity of being human that hadn’t existed in her body as a not-quite-goddess.

She was back.

“Jules, Jules, oh my god,” Quentin said, rushing over. “Are you—wait, lie back down, you’re gonna—Jules, Jesus fucking Christ, you scared me, I—”

“Q, I’m okay,” Julia said, taking long, slow breaths as she lay back, her head sinking into the pillow.

A strange sadness settled in her chest. She had just barely made her decision, the words had just left her mouth—

She hadn’t gotten to say goodbye to Feronia. It was an odd feeling. Like dreaming you have an extra sibling, or a dog, and waking up to miss someone or something that never existed. Some part of her knew that she’d see Feronia again. Another part of her knew that choosing to be human put some distance between her and Our Lady of the Grain.

“Julia, I—” Penny 23 said, walking slowly from across the room. “I’m so glad you’re awake.”

“Yeah,” she said, a little weakly. “Here I am.”

Quentin put a hand on her arm, and something in her relaxed. It reminded her, on a fundamental level.

She was _human._ She could feel the difference in her skin, in her bones.

“Eliot?” she asked.

Quentin cracked a smile. “He’s in the next room. Healing.”

“Good,” she replied, with a thin sigh.

“You’re the one who was giving us trouble,” Quentin said.

She glanced at him, a tired, wry smile at her lips. “I like to overcomplicate things.”

“Don’t I know it,” he replied with a snort.

Penny 23 took a seat in the chair on her other side, studying her face with that mix of adoration and guilt that he reserved for her. “I thought we were going to lose you,” he said softly.

“Please, like being possessed would be the thing to kill me,” Julia replied. She glanced around the room. “Was Kady—I thought I heard her voice.”

Penny jumped back up. “Yeah, she just stepped out to get coffee. I’ll go find her.”

Hesitantly, he reached down, squeezing her hand before blinking out of the room.

Julia looked back at Quentin, and he was looking at her with a curious gaze.

“Something has changed,” he said.

She smiled. “Yeah. I’m human again.”

“Oh, yeah?” Quentin said, returning her smile. He looked so much more like himself than he had in months—Julia could’ve cried. “So you made your choice, then?”

Julia let out a small, almost-content sigh. “I just wasn’t ready to let go of the life I have.”

“Yeah,” Quentin replied quietly. “I get that.”

They settled into the comfortable silence of the years they’d known each other. The comfortable silence of knowing that the next crisis wasn’t there yet. The comfortable silence that they made it through.

It didn’t matter that she and Kady hadn’t sorted through all the weight between them. It didn’t matter that she and Penny didn’t yet know how to navigate the strange dynamic between them, that he didn’t really _know_ her yet. It didn’t matter that she and Quentin hadn’t gotten the chance to breathe, to deal with everything they’d been through this past year.

They had _time_ now.

She didn’t know if she’d made the right decision. Not really. But it was _hers._ It was her decision and it was her life, and she was going to live it. The path belonged to her.

**Author's Note:**

> I just love Julia and she deserved better. Please let me know what you think!


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